Are you ready to take your face-painting skills to a new level? These fail-proof Halloween face paint templates will have your friends wondering if you grew up traveling with a circus! Great results are really easy to achieve, even if it’s your first try.

Forget about messy wet paint—we’ll be using eye shadow, eye liner, a pinch of glitter, and a few basics shapes that are provided in the free downloadable PDF templates. Just about everything that you need for this project is probably already inside your makeup drawer. If not, a quick trip down the cosmetics aisle will complete your face-painting kit.

Step 1: Apply white eye shadow in an hourglass shape to create the lion’s muzzle. Start on the forehead, go around the inside corners of the eyes, and around the nose. Use the top of your child’s mouth as the base of the hourglass. Leave a spot open on the tip of your child’s nose for the lion’s nose.

Step 2: With your child’s eyes closed, cover the area outside the hourglass shape with gold eye shadow, going around your child’s eyes and then covering the rest of their face. Don’t go quite to the edge – leave roughly half an inch or so around the edge of your child’s face for the lion’s mane.

Step 6: Outline the hourglass shape using black liquid eye liner. Use short, quick strokes at the top of the hourglass, and draw a small, inverted v-shape at the bottom of the hourglass (just above the lips). Use brushy strokes for an added fur-like effect.

Step 7: Using black liquid eye liner, draw a small v-shape on the outside corner of each eye, lines under the eyes, fierce eyebrow lines (following the shape of your child’s eyebrows), and a small black line under your child’s mouth to finish the muzzle.

Step 8: Using black liquid eye liner, add three dots on either side of the bottom of your child’s nose and three quick strokes on either side of the muzzle for the whiskers.

Step 9: Draw the outlines for fangs at the corners of your child’s mouth and fill in with white eye shadow.

Step 10: Finish it off by using short, quick strokes with black liquid eye liner to add fur-like embellishments. Add as many as you like!

Step 1: With your child’s eyes closed, create a triangle over each eye using black eye shadow. Create another small triangle on the tip of your child’s nose.

Step 2: Use black eye shadow to create the jack o’ lantern’s mouth. Extend the mouth of the jack o’ lantern about an inch on either side of your child’s mouth. Add three small squares above your child’s mouth for the jack o’ lantern’s teeth.

Step 3: Apply orange eye shadow to the rest of your child’s face. You can use the orange eye shadow to refine the shapes of the eyes, nose and mouth (try doing that with paint!).

Step 4: Use black liquid eye liner to outline the eyes, nose and mouth to sharpen things up a bit.

Step 5: Draw a line around the pumpkin and the lines inside the pumpkin using brown eye shadow.

Step 6: Rough-in the area for the stem and leaves with green eye shadow. Go over with black liquid eye liner to outline and refine the shape of the stem and leaves.

Step 7: Dampen your fingers and gingerly apply orange glitter over the face of the pumpkin. Apply green glitter over the stem and leaves.

Step 3: Outline the top and outside edge of the white wing shapes using pink shimmer eye shadow, meeting in the middle between the eyes.

Step 4: Apply an oval shape in the middle of your child’s forehead using pink shimmer eye shadow. You could use a teardrop, diamond, star or other favorite shape as well.

Step 5: Draw embellishments around the inside corner of the eyes, above the eyes, and the outside corner of the eyes using purple liquid eye liner. Don’t worry if the shapes don’t match perfectly on either side of your child’s face—asymmetrical, organic shapes will pull off the look just as well.

Step 6: Use pink liquid eye liner to outline the oval shape on the forehead and trace the other embellishments for added effect.

Step 7: Use white liquid eye liner to trace the other embellishments and shapes for added effect.

Step 8: Using white liquid eye liner, apply white dots around the oval shape on the forehead and white dotted lines under the eyes for dainty, fairy-like look.

Step 9: Apply a small dot of eyelash adhesive in the center and above the oval shape on the forehead as well as the outside corner of the eyes. Let the adhesive set for 10-15 seconds and then apply the cosmetic rhinestones/gems.

Tips & Tricks

Place one hand on top of your child’s head or under their chin to hold them steady as you work.

If you accidentally smudge an area with the wrong color, it’s an easy fix. Just go back over it and mix with the original color.

Large applicators will make the job much easier! You could also use makeup sponges, cut into quarters, or whichever size suits your design.

Everything is very cute, you did a nice job explaining the steps. The only problem, is a major one. Craft glitter, even ultra-fine, should never be used for face painting. It has sharp edges that can cut the cornea of the eye and cause ulcerations. Not something a parent wants to do to their kids. Even placing it on the skin of the arm, kids can wipe it in their eyes.
Please advise parents to ONLY use cosmetic-grade glitter, it is what the FDA advises to use.
Have a safe and wonderful Halloween!

Thanks for your comment! We appreciate you mentioning this and have updated the above to suggest cosmetic grade glitter so there is no confusion about using crafting glitter. Thanks so much for being a fan!